


Sing me to Sleep

by batty4u



Category: Suits (TV)
Genre: Blood, Death, Gen, Ghosts, Gun Violence, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Violence, kid harvey, kid mike, rating may change later on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:57:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batty4u/pseuds/batty4u
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For as long as Harvey could remember, and he prided himself on a very good memory, he’d been able to see ghosts. Not only see them, but talk to them, ask them about their days, their lives, and more specifically, when he was feeling particularly curious and a little bit morbid, their deaths.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone, I know I've been a bit absent as of late, life took a crazy turn and I'm trying to pull things together. This fic has been bugging me for a while, and I watched a series of ghost-themed movies the other night, so I finally sat down to write it. At the moment, I have at least another chapter planned, but just in case life becomes a bitch, I'm making this one chapter for the moment. 
> 
> It's a weird premise, I know. There's mentions of death, in a few variations, bullying and a tiny bit of violence but at this point, the rating is a bit too high for whats included. but more will be added later, so bare with me.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it at the very least.
> 
> P.s. Title is from the Smiths' song Asleep.

For as long as Harvey could remember, and he prided himself on a very good memory, he’d been able to see ghosts. Not only see them, but talk to them, ask them about their days, their lives, and more specifically, when he was feeling particularly curious and a little bit morbid, their deaths. He didn’t know why he could see them, talk to them, befriend them. No one seemed to know why. Not his father, nor mother, nor brother, nor aunts. Not the counselor at his preschool, nor the doctor, nor the man in the tweed suit who asked him at the age of five “How does that make you feel, Harvey” and thought maybe it was a ploy for attention.

 

No one knew why Harvey was the little boy who saw the dead.

 

He just could.

 

And he was more or less okay with that.

 

At least, until he started first grade that is.

 

Most people over the age of twenty have realized how cruel some children can be towards their fellows. They watch them and wonder “Was I ever that bad as a kid? No I couldn’t have been” and “Where are their parents, how could they let their child be this way” and “I’ll do better when I’m a parent”. But regardless of why they are the way they are, the cruelty of children is the first step in convincing someone that they aren’t special. That instead they are a freak, that they are worthless, unwanted, strange. Once a child is convinced of this by their classmates, they’ll likely spend the rest of their lives growing up with the belief lodged in their minds.

 

Harvey never forgot the first time he was called a Freak.

 

He never forgot the venom in Maggie Hartwood’s voice when she spit it at him. He never forgot the sneer of her friend’s lips as they agreed with her. He never forgot the echo of the word around his first grade classroom as the other students voiced their agreement.

 

He never forgot it.

 

He never forgave it.

 

Because the Freak didn’t get to sit with their friends at lunch. The Freak didn’t get invited to birthday parties, not even by the parents trying to be fair to the whole class. The Freak didn’t get picked for the kickball team at recess.

 The Freak got a spider in his Valentine’s basket. The Freak got mashed potatoes smeared in his hair during lunch. The Freak got hit with a basketball, over and over, during gym class until he had to go to the nurse for a bloody nose. The Freak got into fights in the boys room and went home with scraped knees and a split lip and stinging eyes. The Freak was called names and completely ignored.

 

His dad tried telling him that being a freak just meant he was special, that being special was a good thing. But after the fourth bloody nose and the sixth new backpack in as many months, it became hard for Gordon to keep telling his son it’d be okay. He never told Harvey to ignore it, because that just seemed cruel. That, and New York City had a lot of dead people it seemed, so for Harvey to ignore it would be more effort than a first grader could exert.

 

“Keep your chin up, kiddo,” He’d say instead, because what else could he say?

 

His five year old saw dead people. There wasn’t a parenting book on earth that could tell him how to deal with that.

 

By the time Harvey was in third grade, he’d gotten used to being treated like he was subhuman. It still sucked, and he still had no friends, except his baby brother Marcus. But Marcus was only three, so he wasn’t exactly the kind of friend a seven year old wanted to have. No one wanted to be friends with the skinny, scuffed kneed, hot tempered kid with messy blonde hair and weird powers.

 

Well, actually, if Harvey were to be completely honest, he had more friends than anyone.

 

At some point in the beginning of second grade he’d gotten tired of being angry at ghosts. It wasn’t their fault they were dead (well most of them anyway) and they told really nice stories. And when they realized he could see them, they were always so excited to be noticed, to be remembered. They said hello to Harvey when he walked to PS 1602 each morning. Mr Jethro, the cop who had been shot seven years earlier, walked him home each wednesday. Sallie Gin, the thirteen year old girl who’d been hit by a car in 1957, would always sing to him when he was sad. The cemetery at the church he went to each sunday was like a block party, and once the ghosts knew he could see them, he’d arrive each sunday morning to a chorus of excited greetings and smiles. It was the only reason church was bearable. His mother made him go, she thought maybe if he prayed enough, God would cure him. The ghosts outside the barbershop on Mills street thought that was funny.

 

So Harvey was, all things considered, with a mother who was afraid of him, classmates who couldn’t look him in the eye, and the ability to talk to the roadkill on the interstate, was a pretty happy eight year old. No he didn’t go to birthday parties and no his parents weren’t home very often, with his father’s music career and his mother… doing something, Harvey just figured she worked a lot. But he was happy. Sort of.

 

Then came _The Incident_.

 

Behind PS 1602, across the basketball court and pathetic patch of grass they called the kickball field, was the neglected shed where the gym teachers kept the outdoor supplies. The glass in the windows was shattered, the wood of the walls rotting away, the roof patched again and again. The grass around it had been left to grown wild and vines clung to the door. Most of the gym teachers didn’t bother with it anymore, not after the gym program had been cut down due to budget rewrites and they stopped having gym every other day and instead met once a week, inside, to learn the rules of games like football and hockey. So the shed was left to sit quietly in its eerie corner of the property. If you asked the students why no one went near it though they’d tell you point blank:

 

It was Haunted.

 

Harvey had heard the stories ever since he’d started school there. The shed was haunted. That some kid had died on the property and he wouldn’t leave. That if any kid went into that shed, they were never seen again.

 

It was nonsense as far as he was concerned.

 

He knew every ghost in the school. There was Nikolai the old janitor who had died in ‘65, Lucille the Lunch Lady who had overdosed on medication in the cafeteria after school by accident in ‘71, the art student who never spoke and who had died in her sleep the night before her big show, in ‘54 Harvey thought, and the two football players, Joey and Holden, who’d been hit by a drunk driver in ‘74. They were all fairly nice ghosts, they kept to themselves, never bothered the students, and were just waiting for their chance to leave. Harvey would have known if there was a ghost in the shed. He would have known the moment he stepped foot on the school grounds.

 

So when poltergeist activity started in september of his third grade year, Harvey was confused. Faucets would start turning themselves on. Basket balls left laying around the court would be sent flying through windows and at passing children. The band kids who had to stay after class for practice said they’d hear screaming in the halls, but no one was there. Lights in the cafeteria would explode, crying could be heard on the kickball field, windows were broken by seemingly nothing.

Harvey asked the school ghosts if any of them were responsible, but they all said the same.

 

“It’s not us. It’s the ghost in the shed.”

 

“How come I’ve never met that ghost?” Harvey asked Nikolai as the old janitor walked him to math class.

 

“They’ve been there a while, Harv. They’re quiet. They’re scared.”

 

“But if they’ve been there so long why only cause trouble now? It’s silly.”

 

“Maybe something upset them. Ghosts have feelings too ya know.”

 

His father said to leave it be, that maybe the ghost would stop their tantrum soon and things would go back to normal. He mother told him not to talk about make believe at the dinner table. Marcus babbled about how cool flying basket balls were and maybe the ghost could make instruments fly too.

 

Harvey wasn’t sure what to do about it. It wasn’t his place to just barge in and tell the ghost to stop messing around. And he’d never even met a poltergeist. He’d heard about them sure. But they were dangerous, they could hurt people. And the angrier they go, the worse they became. He’d read stories about poltergeists who attacked people, who brought buildings down because they were angry with the people in it. He was scared of them.

 A few weeks before Halloween, one of the kids who’d made Harvey’s life hell for two whole years, Owen Pilinski, was outside with his friends during recess, when he threw a rock at the shed and broken the already broken window further.

 

Harvey watched as the shed threw the rock back at Owen.

 

Then it threw half a brick and hit Owen in the head.

 

Owen went home with a nasty cut and dizzy spells. He had to get stitches. The teachers were demanding an explanation, trying to find out who had thrown the brick at Owen so they could punish someone for what Owen couldn’t explain. They never found anyone responsible. Harvey didn’t have the nerve to tell them it was because there was in fact an angry ghost in the shed. He’d learned early on that teachers didn’t like being told that kind of thing. No matter how true it was.

 

Harvey decided to handle it himself.

 

One week later on friday night, after school had let out for the weekend and the teachers had packed up to leave, Harvey climbed out of the cabinet he’d hidden in. Nikolai had showed him the hiding place last year, when Harvey had needed to avoid Owen and his friends. It was a library cabinet and for some reason, they never locked the library. So Harvey was able to hide there after classes and sneak out to the backcourt without much trouble. His father was in Boston for the weekend. His mother was never home anyway. Marcus was with their aunt. No one even knew he was there.

 

Like any good ghost story, the sky was overcast and darkening as he moved warily towards the shed. He left his backpack outside, clutched his flashlight to his chest and took a deep breath.

 

If he didn’t do it, someone else would get hurt.

 

He took another deep breath and pushed the door to the shed open. It swung away from him with a creak and a moan, the ivy snapping on the wood. He glanced over his shoulder to see no one watching him and took a hesitant step inside.

 

“Hello?” He called, turning on his flash light. It wasn’t a very big shed, and the boxes shoved in there by the teachers took up a lot of room. He moved slowly inside, stepping over rope and torn nets and broken hockey sticks. “Anyone here?”

 

There was a whistling sound and a baseball soared past his head, hitting the wall with a thunk. Harvey froze, holding his breath.

 

“Get out,” came the soft hiss from the far corner of the shed.

 

“N-no.” Harvey tried to say firmly. He stood straighter, the way Captain Kirk did on TV.

 

Another baseball barely missed his ear. “Go away!” snapped the hoarse voice and this time Harvey could tell it was a boy.

 

“I’m not here to hurt you. I just wanna talk.”

 

“I don’t wanna talk to you!” the ghost screamed. “I want to be left alone!”

 

The air in the shed grew cold, Harvey’s breath fogging the air. He could hear the crinkling of frost building up on the windows and he started to panic. None of the other ghosts had been able to do that. It took a lot of energy, a lot of power, Nikolai said, to do things like that.

 

Harvey took a step back. “Look you hurt someone. I just want to know what’s wrong.”

 

“You can’t help.” There was a tremor in the ghost’s voice.

 

“I can try.” Harvey insisted. “I can hear you, can’t I? How many other kids can hear you?”

 

The ghost was quiet, but the chill in the air didn’t change. Harvey swallowed his fear and kept talking, taking one cautious step after another. “I know you threw the brick at Owen. I know you flooded the bathroom on the second floor three weeks ago. I know you broke the lights in the cafeteria.”

 

“Go away.”

 

“I know you’re upset.”

 

“I said go away!”

 

“No,” Harvey shouted back and to his surprise, the chill began to recede. “No, I’m not leaving until you promise not to hurt anyone else.”

 

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” the ghost insisted from wherever it was hiding.

 

“But you did.”

 

“He threw a rock at me.”

 

“It’ll go through you won’t it?” Harvey asked, looking around him. “You’re a ghost. It won’t hurt you.”

 

“Doesn’t mean it’s not scary,” replied the ghost in a little voice.

 

“Throwing a brick at someone is just as scary.”

 

“He deserved it!” The ghost snapped.

 

“And the flooded bathroom? And the cafeteria lights? Were they scary too?”

 

One of the shelves cracked and the boxes fell. “Go away.”

 

“I said no.”

 

“Go away!” the ghost screamed, throwing a box at him. Harvey ducked and covered his head, hearing the crash of the box against the door. “Go away and leave me alone.”

 

“I can help you,” Harvey told him, covering his head as more boxes and broken toys went flying. “I know you’re scared and I know you’re angry but let me help you.”

 

There was a loud crack and Harvey looked up. Against the far wall stood a little boy, his pale skin flushed with angry color, his little hands balled into fists, bright blue eyes sparking with energy. Electricity danced across the air, tickled his skin and made his hair stand wild. Harvey scrambled away from him as the sparks hit his skin.

 

“You don’t know anything!” He screeched and the whole shed trembled around them. “You’re not dead! You’re not alone! You’re just some dumb kid!”

 

Harvey wanted to run. He wanted to crawl for the door, run away and never look back. It was a first for him, to be facing down an angry ghost who could probably kill him without even trying. And it was a first he’d rather not experience. But he couldn’t look away, he couldn’t move, he just sat there, terrified, staring up at the little boy who hovered before him.

 

“You have parents,” the ghost shouted at him, as the glass fell from the window frames and shattered and the shelves rattled along the walls. “You have people who love you. You have a home and friends and a life. You know nothing! And you-” Harvey ducked as several baseball bats were hurled at him. “Can’t.” A basket ball hit him in the shoulder. “Help.” The light hanging over head fell and smashed against the floor near Harvey’s feet. “Me.”

 

With the final word, the shed fell silent and still, the little boy hovering in front of Harvey, barely a foot from his face. He was livid, eyes filled with tears, pale, white skin tinged with blue and pink as the sparks of electricity burned at his fingers and hair. He was pretty, in a terrifying way that made Harvey sure he was probably going to die.

 They stayed that way for several heart beats, Harvey counting the hammering sound in his ears as those piercing blue eyes, so pale they were nearly white, stared at him. But the ghost didn’t move to attack, he didn’t scream, he didn’t bring the shed down around them. He just stared at Harvey in silence.

 

Something about it made Harvey braver.

 

“I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “I’m not you. I’m not a ghost.” The boy bristled and opened his mouth to speak but Harvey hurried on. “I know that I couldn’t possibly understand you, but I know what loneliness feels like, ok? I have parents who don’t come home. All of my friends are dead, like you.”

 

The little ghost pulled back a bit. “That’s a lie.”

 

“No, it isn’t.” Harvey swallowed the lump in his throat and sat up. “I would never lie to you.”

 

Confusion crossed his face and some of the sparks began to sputter out, a hint of warmth returning to the shed. “I don’t believe you.”

 

“Fine,” Harvey held up a hand in an attempt to put the ghost at ease. The white-blue eyes glanced at it, before flicking back to Harvey’s face. “Fine, but please believe me when I say I do want to help.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because…” He shrugged. “Because I can help you. And because no one should be alone if they don’t have to be.”

 

Like a taut string being cut, the ghost vanished. The ice receded from the windows, everything that flew around the shed dropped to the ground or slid carefully back into their proper places on the shelves. Harvey stayed where he was, holding his breath and waiting for something to come crashing down on him.

 

But the ghost reappeared a few feet away, sitting on the ground with his knees pulled into his chest. He looked up at Harvey with big, focused blue eyes. “I’m sorry for hitting you.”

 

Harvey offered a meek smile. “I’m okay.”

 

The ghost looked away. “I… I didn’t mean to hurt the boy. I was upset and then he threw the rock at me.”

 

“And you just thought about throwing something back?” Harvey asked and he nodded. “Well I mean, he’s a jerk, so out of everyone its kinda okay that you hit him.”

 

The little ghost laughed, a breathless flutter of sound. “Okay. I guess thats good.”

 

The small smile on the ghost’s lips was mirrored on Harvey’s face. “What’s your name?”

 

“Uhm… I’m Michael.”

 

“Michael?” Harvey echoed.

 

“I think they used to call me Mike.” There was a drop of confusion in his voice, like he couldn’t be properly sure about his own name.

 

“Can I call you Mike?” Harvey asked.

 

The little ghost nodded. “What’s… What’s your name?”

 

“I’m Harvey.”

 

The smile grew. “I like that name.”

 

“Thanks.” Harvey shifted so he was mirroring Mike’s posture, pulling his knees into his chest. “So what happened?”

 

“Whaddaya mean?”

 

“Why are you upset?”

 

“Oh…” Mike looked away. “someone took something from me.”

 

Harvey frowned. “What did they take?” He hadn’t known that ghosts had possessions.

 

“My mother’s ring,” Mike explained. “See sometimes, when a person dies, they have something solid, something real, that keeps them here, that keeps them rooted. My mother’s ring was the only thing of hers I had left. It was sitting on that shelf there.” Mike pointed and Harvey could see the disturbed dust. “And someone came in and took it.”

 

“And that’s why you’re causing so much trouble?” Harvey asked. “You want it back.”

 

Mike nodded. “I was really little when she died. I don’t remember her very well. My daddy gave it to me so I’d remember her.”

 

Harvey thought for a moment, chewing on his lip. “Well… I could try and find it for you, if you wanted?”

 

Those bright blue eyes met his. “Really?”

 

“Yeah. I mean it’s yours. Someone can’t just steal it. That’s not nice. And it’s illegal.”

 

“I don’t think laws apply to ghosts, silly.”

 

“Well maybe they should,” Harvey said. “I could be the first ghost lawyer!”

 

They laughed, Mike’s musical giggles filling the shed with warmth. “I like you. You’re funny.”

 

“I like you too.” Harvey said. And it was true.

 

“So. What’d this ring look like?”

 

Harvey went home to a dark and empty house with a rough sketch of Mike’s ring tucked into his pocket and a plan forming in his head. He made himself dinner and studied the drawing, the thin gold ring with with small leaves carved into the metal. There were no gems, nothing fancy or remarkable about it. But Harvey had seen the light in Mike’s eyes when he talked about it. He knew how precious it was to him.

 

And he was going to find it, no matter what.

 

He enlisted the help of the other ghosts, told them to keep an eye out for the ring, showed the the picture, told them it was of the utmost importance. Joey and Holden teased him about it at first, said it sounded like he was trying to get the right girl, but he ignored them and they stopped after a week.

Every day after school, he would go and see Mike. They never talked about whether or not he had found the ring. Mike wanted to know about his day, how he was feeling, his favorite color, his favorite song, what they were serving in the cafeteria, why Harvey had a bruise on his cheek and tholes in his new jeans.

 

“It’s nothing,” Harvey told him.

 

“Owen’s back isn’t he,” Mike touched harvey’s cheek with cold fingers.

 

“I fell down the stairs, that’s all.”

 

Mike didn’t argue with him. At least not at first. Harvey could tell he wanted to, and when they were outside for gym class, and Owen wandered too close to the shed, he knew Mike was responsible for the hissing sounds that had the entire class, and Owen, screaming about snakes in the grass for the next half hour.

 

Harvey made sure to thank him that day after school.

 

It was another week before Lucille found Harvey in the cafeteria and told him she’d found the ring.

 

“What do you mean the cheer captain has it?” Harvey hissed.

 

Lucille shrugged. “One of the cheerleaders had to get something from the shed and found the ring. Then the captain stole it from her bag after practice. I saw her wearing it this morning.”

 

The trouble with that was the fact that, as the cheer captain, Jackie Kole was almost never alone. Ever. Not in the bathroom, not in class, not in the parking lot, not even in the nurses office. It was maddening. Short of breaking into her house, Harvey didn’t know how he was going to get the ring. She never took it off and she was never alone.

 

The art student who never spoke found him in english class. She stood next to his desk in silence and put her hand on his, guiding his pencil across the page of his notebook.

 

_She doesn’t wear the ring to practice. She leaves it in the locker room._

 

He looked up at her, not sure what to say. She only smiled and vanished.

 

“You have to sneak into the girls locker room.” Joey asked him at recess. He hovered next to Harvey as he sat on the steps with a book in his lap.

 

Harvey sighed. “Yes.”

 

Joey laughed. “You’re a bit young for a panty raid kid.”

 

“I need to get the ring back, Joey. It’s important. You know that.”

 

“I know I know, I’m just teasing,” he ruffled Harvey’s hair. “But you’re more than likely going to get caught.”

 

“Not if you show me how you and Holden used to sneak in.”

 

Joey looked offended. “And who told you we used to sneak into the girls locker room?”

 

“Nikolai.”

 

Joey couldn’t argue with that.

 

Harvey didn’t tell Mike his plan, Mike would just worry. But he waited outside by the locker room window, which was just big enough for his skinny body to squeeze through, until the cheerleaders had cleared out and made their way to the gym for practice.

 

“Okay kid, be quick because there’s always a straggler,” Holden told him, tugging Harvey’s hood up so his face was somewhat hidden.

 

He slipped through the open window and dropped to the pale, pink tiled floor, the thunk echoing off the lockers and the walls. Otherwise, it was silent, and he darted around the corner, looking for Jackie’s locker, which the art student ghost had told him was Locker 234.

 

“Holden come on I found it!” he whispered and Holden appeared beside him. It took effort, but the ghost phased through the locker and found Jackie’s bag, tugging it out with him so Harvey could search it.

 

“Is it there?” Holden asked, keeping a wary eye out.

 

“I’m looking, I’m looking.”

 

“Hurry up someone is coming!”

 

Harvey froze at the sound of hurried footsteps. “What do I do?”

 

Holden rolled his eyes and grabbed the front of Harvey’s jacket. “Hold your breath on three. One, Two, Three.” Harvey took a large gulp of air and held it, as Holden shoved him into a locker, phasing him through the metal. He held his breath, Holden’s hand still fisted in the front of his hoodie, as he listened to the panicked footsteps of one of the the cheerleaders. After a minute he heard the door slam and Holden yanked him out of the locker.

 

“You okay?” he asked and Harvey gave a frantic nod. “Good then find the ring and let’s go, I can’t hide you again.”

 

Another thirty seconds of panicked searching and Harvey found the gold ring tucked into her makeup bag. He grabbed it, gave her bag back to Holden for him to place it back in her locker, and snuck back out the window before anyone else would wander in.

 

The next day, he went to find Mike.

 

“Harvey!” The little ghost hugged him, a burst of cold and gentle sparks of electricity hitting Harvey as he did. “How are you? How was your day? Did Owen cause trouble again?”

 

Harvey shook his head but found he wasn’t able to speak.

 

“What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?” Mike pressed a hand to his forehead. “Oh wait, I wouldn’t be able to tell if you had a fever. Never mind.”

 

If Harvey gave him back the ring, Mike might leave. It wasn’t uncommon for ghosts to leave earth once they’d found whatever it was they had lost, or completed some task, or passed on a warning. Maybe finding the ring was Mike’s last task, and if he got it back, he’d leave and Harvey would lose his best friend.

 

Yes, Harvey thought of Mike as his best friend. He knew it seemed silly, but there was no one else he wanted to spend time with. Mike was always happy to see him, always there when Harvey needed him. They were friends and though he knew it was selfish, he didn’t want Mike to leave.

 

“Harvey?” Mike asked again, staring at him in concern with those quizzical blue eyes and Harvey felt whatever resolve he had breaking.

 

He held out his hand, the ring resting in his open palm. “Here.”

 

Mike stared at it, his lips forming a surprised little “Oh”. He seemed scared to touch it, as Harvey watched tears well up in his eyes and his thin, pale fingers reached out for it. “You found Mama’s ring.”

 

"I promised you that I would.” Harvey said, his voice strained.

 

Carefully, Mike took the ring from Harvey’s hand and cradled in both of his, looking down at it as if it held all the answers. “I was starting to think it was lost for good.”

 

“I would have kept looking.” And he would have, all because of the smile Mike would have given him, the same smile that Mike gave him when he looked up, eye filled with tears, cheeks tinged with pink and blue.

 

“Thank you, Harvey.”

 

He nodded. “If… If you need to leave now you can.”

 

He could be selfless. He was seven and a half years old. He was old enough to be selfless, he told himself. And Mike deserved a chance to rest.

 

Mike frowned. “What do you mean?”

 

“You have the ring back. Its your last task, right?” Harvey shrugged. “That means you can pass on now.” He looked away, trying not to let the fact that the thought of Mike leaving made him want to cry show on his face.

 

The soft laugh made him look up. Mike was smiling at him, fond and amused. “Harvey I’m not leaving. I can’t leave. No one’s come to get me yet.”

 

“That… That wasn’t your final task?” Harvey asked in surprise.

 

“No of course it wasn’t. I mean… I don’t even know how I died, Harvey.” Mike shrugged. “I don’t remember any of it, but all I know is someone’s going to come and get me, when it’s time for me to go.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“It’s not time yet.”

 

Harvey gave him a smile. “I’m… I’m glad.” he admitted.

 

“Me too,” Mike agreed.

 

“So,” Harvey shuffled his feet. “What now? Are you staying here?”

 

Mike thought a moment, chewing on his thumb as he did. “The ring is what keeps me rooted here, I think. So I can go where it goes.”

 

“Why didn’t you follow Jackie home then?” Harvey asked.

 

“I didn’t know where it was. There’s a difference between being tied to something and knowing where it’s going, and being tied to something that’s taken from you, and being stuck in the general area.”

 

“Oh, so… So because this was familiar you stayed here?” Mike nodded. “Makes sense I guess. But what about now?”

 

There was a moment of silence. Then Mike handed the ring back to Harvey.

 

“Take it with you.”

 

Harvey stared at it. “What?”

 

“Take the ring and keep it safe. That way I can follow you.” Mike looked sheepish. “If that’s ok I mean.”

 

Mike wanted to stay with him.

 

Harvey felt like he might burst.

 

“Of course that’s ok,” he said quickly. “I mean my house is kinda small and my brother can be a pest but yeah you can totally come home with me.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Well yeah, you’re my friend of course you can. I mean I want you too.”

 

Mike beamed and hugged Harvey so tightly he could feel the pulse of electricity in his own veins.

 

When they got home, Harvey hung the ring on a leather cord and slipped it over his head. He told Mike, promised him, that he’d never let the ring out of his sight. And that was a promise he intended to keep. Because now, Harvey had a friend. A real friend.

 

Yes, technically he was dead. But Harvey didn’t care. Mike was perfect. Mike made him laugh, Mike wanted him around. Mike cared.

 

Harvey couldn’t ask for anything more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Casper ain't got nothing on Mike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright everyone let's get the warnings done first:
> 
> THIS CHAPTER HAS TWO FAIRLY GRAPHIC DEATHS IN IT.
> 
> I tried not to make them overbearingly gorey and awful, but if people getting shot is something that you don't like, you can skip past it. you'll see it coming don't worry.
> 
> Other than that, this chapter is just really depressing at points and does not have a happy ending
> 
> but that's why there will be a third chapter. I'm an asshole but im not that cruel
> 
> feel free to message me with questions
> 
> enjoy

Part of him had figured it would be weird, having a ghost living, for an uncertain amount of time, in his house, with him and his family. Especially a ghost who liked to act like a poltergeist when he was upset.

But Mike was the perfect guest.

He woke Harvey up almost every morning with a gentle coo and a smile. He helped Harvey make breakfast and get ready for school. He’d sit with him through every class, helping with math and geography. He’d keep him company during recess, walked him home, helped him do his homework, make dinner, put Marcus to bed.

And then every night, he and Mike would sit together on his bed, and read together. Whatever Mike wanted to read, Harvey would find on the bookshelf down stairs, sneak it up to his, their, bedroom. Once or twice his mother came home past midnight and would hear Harvey reading out loud up in his room. Those nights weren’t as fun, he got grounded once for breaking the curfew he didn’t know he had. But even then, Mike would curl up next to him, say he was sorry for getting him in trouble, and wait until Harvey had fallen gently asleep. 

Rinse and repeat.

Harvey, looking back, barely remembered his life before Mike had stepped into it.

He was pretty okay with that.

“Harvey?”

Sunlight was fighting its way through the curtains. Harvey curled further under his covers and refused to move.

“Harvey, it’s morning,” came Mike’s soft voice again.

“Five more minutes.”

“Harvey,” Mike sang, sweet and soft, before phasing through the covers. “Come on you silly.”

Harvey blinked and stared at him, his face scrunched up, his eyes blurry. “This is why ghosts should sleep.”

Mike giggled. “Come on, Harvey. Your dad is home. He’s making breakfast downstairs.”

Harvey sniffed the air. “Bacon?”

“Bacon.”

Sunday mornings had become his favorite morning of the week. His mother had given up on taking him to church, said that having a son who talked to grave stones was embarrassing. So she would leave nice and early and go to mass alone, or with some of the other ladies on their block. Sometimes that meant that Harvey was left to make Sunday breakfast for Marcus.

But the best Sunday mornings meant his dad was home.

“Good morning sunshine,” Gordon called from the stove, where he stood in a frilly apron he’d found at a thrift store. “Hungry?”

“Yes,” Harvey said, carrying Marcus downstairs, his little brother wrapped around him like a small monkey. “When did you get home?”

“Just before midnight. I didn’t want to wake you or your brother so I just went to bed.”

At ten, Harvey knew that bed meant the guest room. His parents hadn’t been sleeping in the same bed since he was nine. “I was up reading, I guess I didn’t hear you.” He set Marcus in his chair and went to help his dad, Mike’s ring on a thin chain around his neck like always, Mike following and sitting himself on the counter to watch.

“Oh and what were you and Mike reading this time?”

Six months after Mike had followed Harvey home, he’d finally been brave enough to tell Gordon about his presence. He waited until one night when Harvey was making dinner for himself and Marcus, despite the fact that Gordon was supposed to be home. He’d spent all day saving his energy, saving his power, focusing, so that when Gordon came home and joined his sons in the kitchen, all Harvey had to do was ask Mike to pass the box of pasta, and Mike sent it flying into Harvey’s hand. Gordon had been awestruck and dinner had been forgotten for a good twenty minutes of shenanigans, the contents of the cabinets flying about the kitchen to the sound of their laughter. After that, Gordon spoke of Mike like he was his third son.

“We were reading Dracula.” Harvey took the eggs and started to crack them into a bowl so he could scramble them.

“Isn’t that a bit old for you?” Gordon asked.

“Aren’t you a bit old for Looney Tunes?” Harvey shot back.

“Touche.”

“Besides, Mike is smart, he helps me figure out the words I have trouble with.” Harvey grinned at Mike, who nodded.

“Well that’s always good. How that last spelling test go?”

“I got an A.”

“Did Mike help?”

“He just helped me study. I took the test myself.”

Gordon hummed and kissed Harvey’s hair. “Good job kiddo.”

“Can I have extra bacon?”

“Sure.”

Harvey loved Sunday mornings.

He also loved tuesday afternoons. His brother would get picked up from school by their aunt and go spend the afternoon at her house, being spoiled rotten. Gordon would be at rehearsal, Harvey’s mother no where to be found. That left Harvey and Mike to their own devices. And for a ten year old and a ghost, the city offered a lot of potential.

Sometime they’d go “Ghost Hunting”, which was really just the two of them wandering the neighborhood and the subway stations and talking to the ghosts they met, marking down their names and year of death, keeping track of everyone they met. 

Others they would go to the library, bury themselves in books, and read until it was dark and his father had to come pick him up, or Mrs. Lola the librarian would walk them home. Harvey had never loved reading until he met Mike, he’d never been all that good at it. Now he read whenever he could, whatever he could. His grades had certainly improved, which meant his parents couldn’t complain about him talking to his “imaginary friend” as the shrink called Mike.

They liked to joke about all the ways they’d prank the shrink. Mike was too nice though, he wouldn’t actually do it. Or so Harvey thought. He stopped going after the Shrink had a breakdown involving shadow monsters on the wall, that oh so conveniently showed up fifteen minutes after Harvey’s last appointment. Mike never told him whether it had been his fault. Harvey didn’t really care.

The best tuesdays were when the weather was warm and they could sit together in the sun, and just be together. Harvey had figured out how to climb onto the roof of their little row home when he was six. Now that he had Mike, he had happier reasons for going up there, other than his parents screaming at each other and not having anywhere else to hide. He and Mike would take a blanket up to the roof and spread it out, with cookies and a book, lay back, and watch the clouds, warm in the sun. 

That was when Harvey would ask all the questions he tried to keep to himself.

Did Mike remember how he died?

Did Mike remember his mother and father?

What was it like to die?

Did it hurt?

Was it scary?

Was it like falling asleep?

Did Mike think anyone would miss him if Harvey died too?

That question upset Mike so much that the entire block lost power for the rest of the afternoon. Harvey was careful not to bring it up again. 

Mike didn’t remember how he died. He didn’t remember his parents. He didn’t remember where he had grown up, other than it had been outside the city. He didn’t remember what his life had been like at all and sometimes that seemed to made him sad. He’d go quiet and Harvey would quickly change the subject with a well placed cloud that looked like a giraffe. 

Being dead was scary at first, he said. It was lonely. But eventually most ghosts, like himself, got used to it. You found the upsides. You found ways to enjoy your seemingly endless days until someone came to get you and took you away. Some of Mike’s ghost friends had been taken, collected he called it. He didn’t bother making many ghost friends after that.

Most of those afternoons ended with the two of them just laying there, quiet, Mike’s cold hand resting against Harvey’s, Harvey’s eyes closed, Mike watching him with a faint smile. They’d stay there until Harvey’s Aunt Amelia dropped Marcus off. Then they’d gather up the blanket and snacks, climb back inside, and make dinner together. Once that was done and Marcus was asleep, they’d curl up on Harvey’s bed, and read until Harvey fell asleep.

Harvey was happy.

Finally, after ten years of loneliness, he had someone with whom he could share everything. And he did. He told Mike everything: how he felt, what scared him, what his nightmares were about, what he wanted to be when he grew up, how angry he was that his mother was never home, how sad he was that his dad was always working. He told Mike all the little secrets that filled his aching ten year old heart until he felt lighter. Sometimes he wondered if that feeling, feeling lighter, was just because Mike liked to hold his hand when they talked. 

“I don’t think she loves me,” Harvey admitted one night, as they lay in his dark bedroom.

He could see the eerie glow of Mike’s blue eyes when they opened. “Who?”

“Mom.”

Mike sat up, his skin a faint white light that cast loving shadows across the covers. “Harvey.”

“I don’t think she ever has.”

“That’s not true.”

“I think it is.” Harvey said, staring at the ceiling. If he looked at Mike he would cry. It had happened before. “She just… She doesn’t care.”

“She does-”

“How do you know?” Harvey demanded. “How could you possibly know?”

Mike was silent for a moment, watching Harvey’s valiant struggle to keep his emotions in check. Then he sighed, a soft flutter of air. “I don’t.”

“Then maybe I’m right.”

“Why do you think she doesn’t?”

Harvey shrugged. “She doesn’t say it anymore. I don’t remember if she ever said it. She doesn’t kiss me goodnight anymore. She doesn’t ask about school. She’s never home. She doesn’t read me stories or help me with my homework. That’s… That’s stuff you do when you love someone right?” Mike nodded. “Then she doesn’t really love me that much.”

Mike was quiet again, his face sad. Harvey could see it out of the corner of his eye. It made him feel sadder. “Maybe she forgot how?”

“What?”

“I… I heard some of the older ghosts talking about it once. That people forget how to love. We get hurt, we get scared, we get tired, and somewhere along the way we forget how to love other people. And ourselves.” Mike shrugged. “Maybe she’s forgotten.”

Harvey closed his eyes. “Or maybe she never knew how.”

“Harvey-”

“I don’t want to love her anymore.”

“Don’t say that.”

“All she does is make Dad cry.”

“Maybe things will change.”

Harvey looked at Mike finally and he could feel himself starting to cry. “You can’t know that.”

Mike made a breathless, pained sound and curled around Harvey, cold and sharp despite the warm covers. “No, no, don’t cry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

There was a question voiced that night that Harvey never forgot, and carried with him the rest of his life, long after he cut his mother out of his heart and never looked back.

Well, actually, if he was honest, two questions.

What did he do wrong to make his mother not love him?

And why did love hurt so damn much?

Mike didn’t have an answer, not that Harvey expected him to. Mike was technically younger than Harvey was, not counting the death years. It was all he could do to hold Harvey, his glowing skin cold and foreign, and let him cry, assuring him that someone loved him, that no matter what someone would always love him. 

There was, as expected, a faint argument, something along the lines of everyone would leave him and no one wanted him anyway and why would they want him? A skinny ten year old who was bad at math and saw ghosts? Who would possibly want him? Who would possibly love him when no one else did? How could Mike be so naive to think that someone would love Harvey when all was said in done?

Mike was patient. 

He held Harvey until the crying had become nothing more than weak sniffles and soft whimpers in the dark room. He trailed his hand fondly over Harvey’s hair and waited until Harvey stopped trying to come up with all the possible ways in which Mike was wrong. Then, once Harvey was silent, Mike looked him in the eye and spoke in a voice that sounded much, much older than that of his usual seven year old chatter.

“I’ll love you.”

Harvey started to argue but Mike pressed one cold finger to his lips and he fell silent.

“Doesn’t matter what happens. I will love you enough to make up for everyone else who walks away. I will love you always, Harvey. I will love you enough that the stars will be jealous of you and the moon will grow sad because she doesn’t have someone who loves her the way I will always love you.”

The room was silent, bathed in the soft glow that was Mike’s spectral form. As he spoke the light grew brighter, warmer, softer, the hand he had pressed against Harvey’s heart humming with electricity and light.

“I have never lied to you. I will never lie to you and even if one day we aren’t together, I will still love you. No matter what.”

Wrapped up in his thin arms, safe in the light of his form, Harvey let himself believe Mike and slowly, to Mike’s soft humming, fell asleep.

They didn’t talk about Harvey’s mother much after that. Harvey distanced himself from her, gave all his love and attention to his father, his brother, and Mike. If it broke his mother’s heart, she never seemed to show it.

Though for some reason, she started going to church more.

Harvey never cared enough to ask why. 

Then one day, a few months before Harvey turned eleven, Mike remembered. 

They never figured out why or how.

But he suddenly remembered.

Everything.

The house in the Bronx still bears the scars.

There’s a spot on the kitchen wall that Gordon patched but never painted, after Mike hurled all the kitchen knives at it like it was a target.

In the living room the wood floor is dented and trenched from the furniture being dragged and thrown around the room. 

Two stairs came loose and no matter how often Gordon fixed them, they never quite stayed in place.

All the windows on the first floor had to be replaced, but there’s still cracks around some of the frames, reminders of how loudly Mike could scream. 

It had been two years since he’d brought Mike home, and Harvey had almost forgotten how scary a powerful, terrified ghost could be. 

Harvey was home alone that night. His mother, as usual, was gone. Marcus was staying at Aunt Amelia’s. Gordon was in Boston playing at a jazz festival. He and Mike had decided to sleep on the first floor, in the living room, in a pile of blankets and pillows, to feel safer. The row home wasn’t big, but at night, it creaked and moaned and breathed. Harvey didn’t like to admit it, but it scared him, especially when he was home alone.

It was a quiet night mostly. They had watched Star Trek and Harvey had eaten mac’n’cheese. They had gone to bed without putting on pajamas or brushing teeth, because there were very few rebellious things a ten year old could do when his parents weren’t home, but Harvey wanted to be able to do them. And once Star Trek was over, they curled up like they always did and Mike hummed softly until Harvey fell asleep. 

He woke up an hour later to Mike screaming.

He still had nightmares about the screaming. 

Harvey woke up expecting to find himself in his living room. Instead, he woke up in a field, the dark cloudy night sky over head, and Mike standing a few feet away. In reality, Harvey was still in his living room, and Mike was backed up against the far wall. But a funny thing sometimes happens when you see ghosts. If you spend enough time with one or two in particular, you might just start seeing what they see, especially if they are residual hauntings or they are fated to relive their deaths. 

Two years and an odd number of months was apparently all it took for Harvey to be dragged into Mike’s memories as they were projected across the room.

It took a moment for Harvey to register exactly what it was he was bearing witness too. At first he thought it was just Mike and him, standing in an open, eerie field. But as the wind moaned through the trees and the grass, other figures emerged, becoming clear in the dim moonlight. 

Three men approached them, two dressed in black suits, their faces hidden from view. The third wore white, though whether that was just how Mike remembered it, or if was what the man actually wore, Harvey would never know. 

He watched, unable to move or speak, as the man in white stepped towards Mike, stumbling, reaching out for him, his face a twisted mix of panic and desperation. He was speaking, saying something Harvey couldn’t hear, speaking to Mike, begging him, reassuring him, lying to him.

The first man dressed in black pulled a gun from the inside of his coat.

It was then that Harvey realized what it was he was seeing.

He watched, helpless, silent, as the man put three bullets in the head of Mike’s father. The blood that coated the grass caught the light of the moon, the light of the second man’s match as he lit his cigarette.

Mike stayed standing, pale, voiceless, as blood pooled at his feet and soaked his shoes. 

“What do we do about the brat?” The man with the gun asked. “I don’t like killing kids.”

No.

No, Harvey begged to anyone who would listen, which of course, was no one. They were in a vacuum of silence and memory, isolated, and Harvey couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move.

He was forced to watch as the second man, cigarette dangling from his lips, pulled his gun and stepped forward.

“You go watch the street. I’ll handle him.”

The first man vanished in a curl of dark smoke, leaving Mike staring up at his companion, who stepped carelessly over the corpse at his feet.

“Surprised you aren’t screaming, kid,” he said absently. “Most people would be screaming by now.”

Mike just stared up at him, silent, the tracks of tears reflected in the light. If there was any fear in him, it was buried, hidden, forced down as far as he could force it. A dark, terrifying anger took its place, making his bright, clever eyes, haunting and cold. It made the man pause, gun lifted half way.

“It’s not personal,” he said faintly, like that somehow made up for what was happening. Slowly he lifted the gun and pressed the end of the barrel to Mike’s forehead. “Just business you know?”

Mike kept staring up at him, those haunting eyes fixed on the man’s shadowed face like a vow and a curse, never spoken, never uttered, but lasting and deadly all the same.

Harvey didn’t know which sound was louder, the gunshot, or the heavy thud of Mike’s body hitting the ground. He found the strength then, as the second man vanished in a similar cloud of dark smoke, as the body of Mike’s father did the same, to move, scrambling across the damp grass towards where Mike lay. Choking on words, he gathered Mike up in his arms, tears blurring his vision. 

If it weren’t for the obvious, bloody, and burned hole on his forehead, Mike would have looked like he was sleeping. Harvey tried waking him, knowing it was pointless. But he tried, even as the field dissolved around them and they were once again in his living room. Mike faded from his arms, only to reappear across the room, returned to his spectral form, with a faint red circle on his forehead.

“M-mike?” Harvey asked. 

Around him, other spectral forms began to appear, dark, shadowy memories of the men in their suits, moving about the room, towards Mike. The air was heavy and sparking with electricity as Mike looked, wild-eyed around at them, the same haunted look in his bright, eerie, glowing eyes. 

Harvey barely had time to duck and cover his head as Mike screamed and all hell broke loose. Furniture went flying, paint and panels were torn from the walls, the bookshelf came crashing to the ground, knives and plates and pans clattering in the kitchen. Harvey covered his head and closed his eyes as static electricity bit and stung at his skin, as debris fell on him, bits of wood and glass from the shattered windows.

With one final surge, one final banshee’s scream, Mike knocked out the power of the entire block, plunging them all into absolute darkness. Harvey held his breath, waiting, in case something else came crashing down on top of him. He could hear the neighbors panicking, moving outside to asses the damage done, calling for him. When nothing else flew across the room and Harvey’s chest hurt from holding his breath, he released it and looked up.

In the center of the room stood Mike, hovering a few inches from the floor, the bright, cold white of his spectral form, the sharp blue of the electricity that licked at his hands and feet, that danced through the air around him, harsh in the dark. He was crying, tears marking the pink of his cheeks. He was crying, and staring at the one last residual image from his memory, his father, laying on the floor in front of him, unmoving, dead, and never coming back. 

Harvey moved slowly, getting to his feet and stepping closer, ready to duck in case Mike lashed out again. But the ghost was finished his tantrum. He just hovered there crying until Harvey reached him and touched his shoulder. Then Mike looked at him, saw the tears on Harvey’s face, saw the way his hands shook and the way he bit at his lip hard enough to make it bleed, something he always did when he was scared and was trying to be brave. The electricity in the air fizzled out, the harsh color in Mike’s cheeks faded, and he fell against Harvey.

For the first time since they had met, it was Harvey’s turn to hold Mike and just wait for the tears to subside. 

That night changed things between them. Not completely, their routine and their intimacy was still the same, if not stronger. But Mike had lost the softness he carried in his eyes and his face. He lashed out at people more, at bullies who bothered Harvey on his way to school, and cars who didn’t stop for red lights and almost hit them when crossing the street. A few accidents had happened before Harvey insisted that Mike calm down.

Harvey had nightmares afterwards, waking up thinking Mike would be gone, or dying in front of him all over again. He was never far away when those nightmares happened, always laying right next to Harvey, or hovering over him, watching him carefully to make sure he was alright. So Harvey stopped sleeping well, started staying up later and getting up earlier, doing more chores if it meant not having to stay in bed. His father grew worried but Harvey refused to visit a doctor or go back to the shrink, so he let it be.

Despite it all, Harvey and Mike were glad for the answers to their questions.

Mike didn’t want to talk about it that much, but Harvey, and his innate curiosity, wanted answers. So, while Mike let himself get caught up in a book on the Tudors one tuesday afternoon, Harvey sought out Ms. Lola and asked for her help with the news papers.

It took three weeks before Harvey had enough information pieced together to figure out what had happened to Mike and his father.

His father, Edwin, had been a detective, a good one, and honest one, according to the news papers. He was a widower, never remarried, with one young son. Seeing the faded photo of Mike from a 1956 Newspaper was unsettling and strange, even if Mike looked exactly the same. From what Harvey could tell, Mr. Edwin was well on his way to being a police Captain.

But he crossed paths with the wrong man and ended up dead in a field south of the city, somewhere near Jersey.

They never found Mike’s body. They found the blood, the footprints, the trail, but never the body. Which made Harvey wonder how Mike had ended up at his school, if he’d been killed so far away.

Ms. Lola found the building records. His school had been built the same year Mike and his father had died, in a neighborhood where their killer ran the streets. A lot of people died in those years, a lot of bodies were never found. But in 1961 a construction team found four bodies in an abandoned lot four blocks from the newly built school. All of them had been killed by the same person who had ordered the hit on Mike. This lead the cops to wonder, how many other people were buried in unmarked graves in the empty lots of the city?

The biggest lot had been the temporary construction site where Harvey’s school had eventually been built. they had cleared out the rows of houses three years before and waited for the construction permits to go through before building the school. 

All they would have had to do was bury someone just before the concrete foundation was laid.

Then no one would ever know.

Mike was buried under the school. He had been there since 1956. 

Harvey wasn’t sure how to feel about that. He packed away the newspapers and journals, thanked Ms. Lola for her help, and never brought it up again.

Though a month later he found out the men who had killed Mike and his father were both arrested and institutionalized for insanity. They kept talking about seeing a little boy out of the corner of their eye. Something about that gave Harvey a twisted sense of pride and satisfaction. 

He never told Mike what he had found.

On Harvey’s eleventh birthday, something else in their friendship changed. 

At midnight, as the small cuckoo clock down stairs struck the final chord, Mike kissed him. It was soft, fleeting, a spark of cold against Harvey’s lips.

They were sitting on the floor of Harvey’s room, playing cards, waiting for the hour to strike and for Harvey to be one step closer to his dreaded teenage years. It had been a joke between him and his father, that he’d grow to be a terror and a brat. He wanted to see if his dad was right. Mike thought differently, said Harvey would be a gentleman through and through. Harvey honestly had no reason to look forward to his birthday, his mother was in Chicago on business, his father’s flight had been delayed in California, and Marcus was yet again at their Aunt Amelia’s. He and Mike were alone.

He was going to be alone on his birthday.

When the first chime of midnight sounded, Harvey held his breath and looked up at Mike.

The ghost smiled. “One.”

Another chime. “Two,” Harvey said.

“Three.”

“Four.”

“Five.”

“Six.”

“Seven.”

“Eight.”

“Nine.”

“Ten.”

“Eleven- Harvey hold still,” Mike said and as Harvey breathed out the final number, he leaned forward and kissed him.

It was cold and foreign and Harvey could feel the electricity from Mike skittering through his own body.

It was his first kiss and it made the world go silent and still around him. 

When Mike pulled away, Harvey stared at him. “What was that for?”

“Ms. Thompkins said when you love someone you kiss them.” Ms. Thompkins was the old ghost who haunted the bakery four blocks down. Whenever Harvey would go with his father to get groceries, Mike would stop to talk with her. “She said you kiss them to show them you love them.”

“That’s something grownups do. And married people do,” Harvey said, his cheeks hot.

Mike shook his head. “Parents kiss their children to tell them they love them.”

“On the cheek not-”

“Are you angry?”

No, he wasn’t angry. He was confused and a little embarrassed, but not angry. He didn’t have the words though, to explain to Mike, that it wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that Mike, the only person Harvey could look at and say without any hesitation and say he loved them, was dead. It wasn’t fair that Harvey would grow up and Mike would always look like he was seven years old. It wasn’t fair that Harvey could only touch Mike when Mike was strong enough to maintain a tangible form. It wasn’t fair that Mike could vanish at any moment and Harvey would be completely alone.

It wasn’t fair.

And that made Harvey angry. That made him scared.

But he didn’t want to tell Mike that.

So instead he just gave him a small smile and stole a kiss for himself. 

It wasn’t the last time they kissed, though it was the most significant of them all. He’d kiss Mike in the mornings sometimes, to say hello. Sometimes he kissed him as he was humming Harvey to sleep. Others it was just because they were alone and Harvey was happy. every kiss was the same cold spark that made him shiver. He thought, honestly, that things would stay good, that maybe life had balanced itself out and he’d get to have a good five, six, ten years of being happy, with Mike.

He was wrong.

It was barely a month after his eleventh birthday when Mike woke him in the middle of the night, panicked and crying.

“What’s wrong?”

“The collector is coming,” Mike said. “She’s outside.”

A woman stood on the dark street, wrapped in soft white light, her long hair tied up in a knot atop her head. She was looking up at Harvey’s window, patient, silent, waiting.

“But- But you can’t leave!” Harvey scrambled out of bed. “You can’t!”

“I don’t have a choice Harvey. If I don’t I’ll get in trouble.”

“Maybe we can ask for more time.”

“There isn’t any,” Mike insisted, his voice twisted in a sob. “There isn’t or else she wouldn’t be there.”

“But you can’t leave,” Harvey said again. “I need you.”

With a soft crack, the collector appeared in the doorway of Harvey’s bedroom. She was beautiful, with a face that changed with every stray ray of light that fell upon it. She was watching them, sad and soft and regretful, but she made no move to turn and leave.

Mike grabbed for Harvey, clinging to him as he tried to stop crying. Harvey thought that maybe if he didn’t let go, he could follow Mike, that she might take them both. But the slow shake of her head meant she knew what he was thinking and it wasn’t how the world worked. 

“I’m sorry,” Mike whispered, pressing his forehead against Harvey’s. “I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t want you to go,” Harvey admitted in a small voice. He felt small and young and lost.

Mike touched the ring hanging around Harvey’s neck. “Keep this. Keep it and I won’t be too far away.”

“Yes you will.”

“But it will help you remember when I wasn’t,” Mike said. “Please promise me you’ll keep it.”

Of course Harvey would keep it.

“I’m gonna miss you.”

“Be brave for me, Harvey. Promise me you’ll be brave?”

Harvey couldn’t speak. If he did it would just be incoherent and broken sounds of sadness. So he nodded, trying to fight back the rest of his tears.

He could be brave. He could be brave for Mike. 

Mike smiled, kissed him one last time, and vanished with the collector, leaving Harvey standing alone in his dark and empty bedroom. 

Harvey sat down in the center of the room and cried. He didn’t stop until the sun had risen and he had to go wake up Marcus so they could go to school. He wanted to crawl under his bed and never come out.

But he had promised to be brave.

***

Mike was sitting next to him, laughing.

It was one of the last days before school let out and Harvey had saved up enough money from his chores and allowance to buy a subway ticket and a ticket to Coney Island. He and Mike had debated on whether or not it was a good idea to go, or if they should just ask Harvey’s father if he could take them on a weekend. eventually they reached the decision that it was more fun to skip school and go, just the two of them.

It was the first time Harvey had skipped school. 

The sun was warm, the air salty from the sea breeze. Mike’s laughter rang through his ears, his cold hand holding tight to Harvey’s as they waited at the top of the Ferris Wheel. Harvey had mustard stains on his jeans and sand in his shoes. 

He was happy.

Mike leaned against his side like a soft breeze, still giggling, his pale white cheeks tinged with pink and Harvey never wanted to ever go home again. He wanted to stay there, at Coney Island, with Mike, forever. 

Mike looked up at him, smiling, saying something softly that Harvey could barely make out. The cool metal of his ring tickled Harvey’s collarbone where it hung around his neck. 

He was in love.

He leaned in to steal a kiss from Mike, who giggled at him and-

And he woke up.

Instead of being on the Ferris Wheel at Coney Island, Harvey woke up in his bed, staring at the high white ceiling of his bedroom, alone. 

Fantastic.

He sighed and sat up, rubbing the sleep and faintest traces of tears from his eyes. Manhattan was busy coming to life outside the window, the avenues already buzzing with traffic and people, the soft constant hum of the city barely filtering through the windows. The condo was so far up that noise had never really been a problem. You only heard it when the silence of the large condo became overwhelming and you lost yourself in it. Harvey tended to do that sometimes. 

It had been a few months since he’d last dreamt about Mike. That had been a nightmare, falling asleep only to find himself ten years old again in the same goddamn field, watching Mike die. The nightmares were more common, if he was honest, but he wasn’t, because it just didn’t matter. He was forty years old, forty year olds just didn’t get nightmares. 

Forty year olds got out of bed and got ready for work and pretended like they didn’t still see dead people everywhere they went.

He rolled out of bed and set to work on the usual morning routine: a short run to get his body and brain working right again, a nod of greeting to all the ghosts he met along the way ( If he had thought the Bronx had a lot of ghosts, it was nothing compared to Manhattan. The ghosts there just never seemed to leave), then once he had made the rounds he showered, fixed his hair, pulled on a suit, made a small breakfast so that he wouldn’t get dizzy spells at the office, and checked his daily schedule. 

His phone reminded him that he had interviews at the Chilton Hotel starting at nine am.

Ah, the exciting life of a newly minted Senior Partner, he thought to himself. 

Just before he left for the day, something made him back track to his bedroom dresser, where in a small velvet box, Mike’s ring sat, polished and safe. Harvey didn’t wear it much any more, it barely fit his ring finger and often, if he wore it, people assumed he was committed to someone. And wasn’t that a strange conversation to have.

But for some reason, that morning, Harvey took the ring from it’s box and slid it into his breast pocket of his blazer, tucked safely beneath his pocket square. It was light and if he hadn’t purposefully placed it there he’d have forgotten about it in an instant. But every time he pressed his hand against it, he could feel the outline of it through his shirt and vest. It was a reminder, soft and reassuring.

He could be brave.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, after a long day or when his mind had kept him awake for just a little too long, Harvey would hallucinate familiar faces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so instead of three chapters there's going to be four, the pacing would have been rushed and i need a little more time to work on the ending
> 
> enjoy

Sometimes, after a long day or when his mind had kept him awake for just a little too long, Harvey would hallucinate familiar faces. At first he would think it was just the usual vision of ghosts, that someone he had once known had died. It had happened once or twice, Owen had crossed his path down by the Sea Port, dressed in a cop’s uniform, killed in action a year earlier. Most of the time though, it was just his mind playing tricks on him. the ghosts he had known in the Bronx hadn’t actually followed him to Manhattan, but there were moments where he’d see their reflections in the glass, or pass them on the street or hear their voices on the smoggy wind. 

It was a terrifying moment when it happened. Harvey never knew what to do, so he often just ignored it.

But it was hard to ignore it when a hallucination walked into his interviews and refused to go away.

“Uh, hi, Rick Sorkin,” the hallucination said, offering his hand.

Harvey nodded and waved for him to follow, turning away and closing his eyes, counting to five, so that when he turned back around the hallucination was gone and he could get back to his work.

The hallucination was still standing there, in a poorly fitted suit and a skinny tie and Harvey thought for a moment he might faint.

Because no matter what the hallucination called itself, Mike was standing in front of him, the same crooked, nervous smile on his familiar, albeit older, pale and freckled face. 

Harvey felt like his heart was breaking all over again, every emotion ever connected to Mike, to those three years, welling up and knotting themselves securely in his throat, stealing his voice and his words, making his hands shake and his eyes sting as he just stood there like a fool and stared.

Luckily, the briefcase Not Mike was holding chose that particular moment to pop open and spill its contents across the hotel floor. All fives bags of pot.

Harvey had never been more grateful for a distraction.

“I’m going to assume you have an explanation for this?” he managed, watching the kid pick up the bags in a panic. 

“I uh… yes… I do,” the kid said with a heavy sigh.

“I’d love to hear it.”

“Well, for starters my name isn’t Rick Sorkin,” he said as Harvey moved to sit behind his desk.

“No?”

“No. It’s Mike, Mike Ross.”

Harvey dropped into his chair, hoping that the shock was hidden by the expected normalcy of the movement. Because what on earth were the actual fucking chance, he asked himself, what could they be, to bring his Mike back to him, with almost the same face, the same first name, and alive.

He had never been that lucky.

Ever. 

He reminded himself of this as Mike Ross shared his story, telling him about his grandmother and her failing health, the nursing home’s demand for money Mike just didn’t have, the friend who had dragged Mike into a drug deal which had ended up being a sting op.

It was a whirlwind of a story and Harvey found himself believing him without any proof. Yes, it was probably because of his goddamn face, but even then, Mike’s voice held a pathetic level of sincerity in it, making Harvey believe it was the truth.

And then of course came the memory.

And wasn’t that the most amazing thing Harvey had witnessed since the first time he’d seen a ghost.

Mike Ross was brilliant. He had a sharp tongue and a strong wit and an unlimited well of courage he just seemed to keep drawing from as he challenged Harvey, beat Harvey, and smiled about it like it was the easiest thing in the world. 

Harvey was breathtaken. 

Breathtaken and filled with an old, withering heartache. 

Maybe that was partially why Harvey hired him, despite the illegality of it all. That old heartache, and the knowledge that with his ambition and Mike’s brain, they could do just about anything.

When Mike Ross finally left the hotel room, and Donna had sent the rejects packing, Harvey went home and drank until he felt numb and his mind was silent, Mike’s ring slipped onto his right ring finger. 

It just wasn’t possible.

It couldn’t be.

For one thing, the universe had only once offered that level of kindness to him and her name was Jessica Pearson. To think it would again hand him something as precious and as fleeting as seeing Mike, his Mike, again, was just madness. 

Secondly, the likelihood of this Mike Ross remembering Harvey, remembering their time together, and not having a complete mental breakdown was also something akin to madness.

And third, Harvey wasn’t even sure if reincarnation was a thing. Yes, the dog eared copy of the Lotus Sutras on his bookshelf, the theories shared over the internet, through conversations with various spiritual healers and so called prophets often said it was very much a thing. But he had no real proof, other than this bizarre predicament.

Besides, even if Mike had come back to him, and he did remember-

What the hell was Harvey supposed to do about it?

A few more drinks said he would do absolutely nothing and Harvey was inclined to agree.

It made going to work on monday morning and facing Mike Ross much harder than it needed to be. 

Needless to say, the ring stayed tucked safely in its box, hidden away in Harvey’s bedroom. But as the week progressed Harvey became sure in his knowledge of one thing-

Mike Ross wasn’t his Mike. 

At least, not completely. But then it really didn’t seem fair to compare a twenty nine year old to a seven year old, as his brother reminded him at three am on Mike’s fifth day of work. 

Mike Ross was compulsive and reckless. He was panicky and hard wired for drama. He was forgetful and frazzled and uncultured and loyal to a goddamn fault. He whined and complained and argued and got into trouble. All of it happened within the first three weeks of his employment. He was a wreck half the time and Harvey found himself wondering if maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

But Mike Ross was hard working, he was honest, he was kind. Mike was compassionate and loving and brave when it came down to it. He took the blame for shit that wasn’t his fault, stood up for others, dug his heels in and refused to move until he won. 

He smiled like the sun in the soft early morning. His eyes were the same clever blue that Harvey still saw in his dreams. His laughter was infectious and powerful. He believed in people, believed in Harvey.

That made Harvey’s loneliness hurt all the more. 

Donna was the only person he’d ever gone too about his gifts and what experiences they had brought him. Surprisingly, she hadn’t demanded proof, she took him at his word and had stood by him ever since. Harvey had even found the nerve to tell her about his Mike, about his death and his hauntings and his inevitable departure. So Donna knew how much weight the memories and nightmares carried.

And she noticed when Harvey started looking more and more weary each morning.

“You having dreams again?” she asked, closing Harvey’s office door behind her and setting a cup of tea on his desk. 

Harvey made a face at the drink but took it anyway. “What makes you say that?”

“You look like you forgot to wash your makeup off after last nights drag show.”

“Well that’s specific.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

He sighed. “Yeah.”

“Have we worked out a reason?” Donna moved to perch on the edge of his desk, a small frown on her lips.

“I have, but… you’re going to think I’ve snapped.”

“Try me.”

“You… you remember that ghost kid I told you about?”

“Your one true love.”

“Fuck off.”

“Yes I remember him. Why?”

“I ever tell you what he looked like?”

Donna thought a moment. “No I don’t think we ever got to the details.”

Harvey sighed and rubbed his forehead. “He was pale, with messy brown hair, a few freckles, and big blue eyes. He was scrawny and almost fragile, with this… ridiculous smile…” the old ache settled into his chest as he spoke.

“Okay, Harvey I’m not following you.”

timing was, yet again, on his side. All he had to do was nod to the glass wall and Donna turned, just in time to see Mike heading for the elevator, chatting amiably with another associate.

“Shit that is a problem.”

“It gets worse.”

Donna raised an eyebrow and waited.

“The kid’s name was Mike. Looked like him, talked like him, would’ve sounded like him if he’d hit puberty…”

“Harvey,” Donna said, and it was laced with sympathy. “You don’t really think-”

“I don’t know what to think. All I know is he looks exactly like him and every night its the same goddamn dreams keeping me awake.” Harvey leaned forward and rested his head on Donna’s lap. “I’m losing my mind, aren’t I?”

“Quite possibly.” Donna said gently, petting his hair for a moment. “Chin up, you’ll be alright. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

“Right.”

“Now drink your tea and get to work.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

It took effort, more than Harvey ever wanted to exert over anything, but he was able to stomach the emotional bullshit that welled up whenever he was alone with Mike, and focus on getting his life back to normal. Well, as normal as it could be involving seeing dead people, possible reincarnations, and a con for the ages. 

But it worked. And Harvey found himself growing more and more attached to Mike Ross, instead of just the memory of his Mike. They made a great team, their billables and success rate doubled once Mike started working at Harvey’s side. It was almost poetic and Harvey enjoyed it. It was new, interesting, fun, if he were careless enough to say so. Even with the bullshit Mike brought to the table from his personal life, Trevor the now ex friend who Harvey had put on a bus to Montana after saving his ass from drug lords, Jenny the now ex girlfriend for whatever reason Harvey didn’t care to know, Harvey found himself enjoying, at his basest level, every little moment. 

Up until they won the clifford danner case and Harvey took Mike out for drinks to celebrate, that is. 

Harvey was pretty sure that was when everything just started falling apart.

Mike, still high on the win, had downed every drink Harvey had fed him thus far, a total of nine if Harvey was keeping count. He was giggly and flushed and wouldn’t shut up. Harvey loved it, loved being the center of Mike’s attention, the only person who got to hear his thoughts, his view. Yes, the jameson helped him enjoy it more than he normally would, but he enjoyed it all the same. 

“So like, do you let clients beat the shit outta you all the time?” Mike asked, slurring a little as he leaned in to examine the bruise under Harvey’s left eye.

“Nah, just on the boring cases.”

“Pfft boring. Like this was boring. We kicked fuckin ass man.”

“Yes we did.”

Mike giggled for no real reason and leaned against Harvey’s side. “We’re awesome.”

Harvey let him stay where he was and fed him another drink. 

He gave Mike a ride home, despite the slurred and incoherent protests, the taxi pulling up outside Mike’s building in Williamsburg. He even helped Mike up to the front door, because face planting on concrete was never a fun experience and he didn’t want Mike blaming a broken nose on him in the morning. 

Mike stopped at the top stair and turned to him with a soft smile. “You wanna know something?”

“What?”

“I know you.”

Harvey rolled his eyes. “Yeah that’s kinda how this whole boss/employee relationship works out.”

“No, no, no,” Mike said, shaking his head and patting Harvey’s chest. “I know you. I know you, Harvey.”

“You’re drunk Mike, go-”

“I knew your face.” Mike looked up at him and the sounds of the city grew distant in Harvey’s ears. “I knew you. I had… seen you somewhere before.”

“It’s a big city.” Harvey said quickly, nodding to Mike’s door. “Go sleep this off. Take some painkillers too.”

“No, Harvey no you’re not listening,” Mike demanded, grabbing at Harvey’s jacket so he couldn’t turn away. He tugged, pulling Harvey close with sloppy movements.

“Mik-”

The kiss cut off anything Harvey would have managed to say. It was poorly timed and not exactly well executed, Harvey bracing himself against the door so he wouldn’t fall on top of Mike, Mike focused on licking into his mouth and holding him in place. But it was warm, honest, laced with whiskey and bourbon and caramel vodka and a hint of tobacco from the cigarette Mike had smoked while waiting for the cab. 

When Mike pulled away his lips were red, slick and swollen and he stared up at Harvey, dazed and dreamlike. 

“I knew your face,” he said softly, like it was their precious secret. “I saw you and I felt like I had known you forever.” He smiled, the corner of his mouth twitching with a hint of sadness. “Isn’t that insane? I just… I knew you, Harvey.” He kissed him again, softer, slower, just as deliberate, and Harvey let him. If he was busy kissing he didn’t have to think about what Mike was saying. Not just yet.

“I was so happy to see you and I don’t know why,” Mike said against his lips. 

One last kiss, and Harvey was able to coerce Mike inside. He waited until he saw the lights flick on in his third floor apartment, before turning and making his way to a busier street, so he could call a cab.

Mike wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning, Harvey told himself. He was drunk, unbearably drunk, didn’t know what he was saying.

He wouldn’t remember. It was the alcohol talking.

That was his mantra as he hailed a cab and returned to his quiet, empty, cavernous home. Then, once the door was locked, he let himself collapse in the hallway, staring out at the city below. 

It didn’t take long for the mantra to become tears and empty prayers as he sat there, curled in on himself, alone once again.

Mike did remember in the morning. But Harvey wasn’t there to witness that, or his monumental hangover. Harvey was no where to be found for the entire working day and Mike didn’t want to admit it, but he started to feel a little like that lost puppy they kept referring to. 

“He didn’t say why?” He asked Donna. 

“Nope. Just called to say he was taking the day for himself.” Donna handed him the second stack of files. “But these are for you and he wants them done as soon as possible.”

“Right.”

“Relax kid, he’s fine.”

“You sure?” Donna fixed him with one of those looks, one that demanded to know why he doubted her, what he knew that she didn’t, and Mike quickly shook his head. “Course you are, you know everything.”

“Course I do.”

That look followed him down the corridor and back to his tiny cubicle, where he sat in a little knot of worry and, to his surprise, loneliness. He had expected it to spawn from an awkward and risky relationship, partnership, whatever he had with Harvey. Because usually, people kept their distance, or he kept his. It was easier that way. People kept their distance, or eventually they left, so Mike learned to keep his. 

It was hard to keep his distance from Harvey. 

He felt safe with him, felt happy. He felt like he’d seen him a hundred times before, that he’d known him, spoken to him every night, that he had almost loved him.

But that was just a little too ridiculous a thought, even for him. 

It was just the loneliness talking. 

 

They pretended that nothing happened. I was easier that way, so they thought. Mike pretended he didn’t remember, Harvey pretended like it had never happened, and they carried on their song and dance without a single hitch in their routine. They won more cases, Mike started taking small, tentative steps towards Rachel, and Harvey let him. It was hard, watching someone he cared for, and yes he’d come to terms with the fact that he did care about Michael Fucking Ross, pursue someone else. It hurt more, seeing the face of someone even more precious to him, smiling at someone else.

But he was forty years old and there was work to be done.

He was too old to be pining and acting like a lovesick fool.

The world wouldn’t wait for him.

It was his newest Mantra, carried in his lapel pocket, murmured in the heavy silence each morning, spoken just before he spoke the name of his bed partner, the one he’d surely forget come morning. 

Mike wasn’t his anymore. Not the ghost child with blue tinged cheeks, not the blushing young man with a sunny smile.

Just the memories and the nightmares.

Those he owned always. 

And they followed him.

They lingered in his daily conversations with the ghosts outside the bars and the dead children playing baseball in an alley. They whispered in his ear in the early morning hours as he stared up at his ceiling, trying to sleep. They followed him through the corridors of the office, watched him in the elevators, suffocated and smothered him when the silence returned and he let his mind wander. Some nights he thought those memories might finally kill him, that it would end and there would be silence.

But that was wishful thinking really. That, and a little too much melodrama for his already hbo worthy life. 

He stopped focusing on what little similarities he could find between his Mike and the boy he spent almost every waking moment with. It was just adding to the mess, he figured, and it was cruel to hold Mike Ross to a standard he’d never possibly meet.

But aside from the slow crumbling of his will and heart, things were going well. He just wished he could sleep.

Their unspoken silence and routine carried on for a few months, as late fall settled over the city and things at the office went through their usual cycle of bullshit, with someone suing someone else and the threat of being caught still lingered over their heads. October had been cool and crisp and just gloomy enough that Harvey didn’t really mind waking up at the crack of dawn, getting dressed, and going for longer runs than normal. He loved the fall, it was easier to breathe and for some reason, the ghosts perked up and spoke to him more. It felt a little less lonely.

He still wasn’t sleeping well, spending more nights awake and hard at work, either at his home office or locked away in the offices of Pearson Hardman, leaving just long enough to shower, grab some breakfast and make it seem like he’d only just arrived. He knew Donna was keeping tabs on him and she was probably already calling a therapist to get him sorted out. It was hard hiding anything from her. And Jessica seemed to know something wasn’t right, but he was doing his job well and keeping his drama out of her life, so she didn’t get involved. 

Funny enough, the first night he found himself drifting into an actual sleep, it was almost midnight and there was a quick knock at his door. The hints of sleep vanished. He’d left the office early that day, had lunch with a client and then spent the remainder of the afternoon exercising himself into exhaustion.

He rolled off the couch with a sighed and went to answer the door, greeting a bundled up Mike with a confused frown. 

“Why are you here?” he said.

“I uh… Sorry, you busy?” 

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Mike sighed and held up a grocery bag. “I had some ideas about the Tolbrook case, thought we could eat and talk them over.”

“At… 11:17 at night.”

“Donna says you don’t sleep anymore.” Mike gave his old sweats and faded t-shirt a glance. “Seems she was right.”

“Fine, kitchen’s through there.” Harvey moved back so Mike could slip inside. He knew it was a bad idea, he should have said no. Something about having Mike in his home made him uneasy and a little desperate. But he locked the door and followed Mike, watching him unpack take out and set it out on the counter. 

“So, what great realization have you come to about the Tolbrook case?”

“I think we’ve been fighting this the wrong way,” Mike says, passing Harvey a styrofoam container of Indian food and taking his own, perching on one of the barstools. “We need to be less subtle and a little more-”

“Crowbar to the face?”

“Exactly.”

“Alright, how?”

They talked about the case for a half hour or so, piecing together a pretty effective plan to steamroll the opposition and shorten both the time it would take to win and the paperwork mountain Mike would have to sort through when it was over. They stole food from each other’s containers, laughed, and the tension in the room, the tension that filled the whole condo really, started to ease. It was the first time in a while that they had really just spent time together, without others to listen in or an impending deadline making their chatter solely about work.

It as nice. 

Harvey wanted more.

At ten minutes to midnight, Harvey gathered up the containers and tossed them, glancing at the grocery bag still sitting on the counter. “Whats in there?”

Mike smiled up at him. “A surprise.”

“Alright… Want a drink?”

“Sure.”

So Harvey poured them each a few fingers of whiskey and handed a glass to Mike, as the clock ticked ever closer to Midnight. Mike kept glancing at his watch, like he was waiting for something. At four minutes to Midnight, he reached for the bag and pulled out a plastic container with one large cupcake in it. Harvey watched, confused, as Mike unpacked it, set it between them, stuck a candle in it and lit it with the lighter he’d had in his pocket.

One minute, thirty seconds to midnight.

“Mike what-”

“Just wait.” he said, his eyes fixed on his watch as the second hand sped along.

Thirty seconds and the whole setup began to feel oddly familiar to him. 

“Mike-” he tried again, his voice tight in his throat.

“Fifteen,” Mike said softly, “Fourteen. Thirteen.” He glanced up with a small smile. “Twelve.”

“Eleven,” Harvey heard himself say.

“Ten.”

“Nine?”

“Eight.”

“Seven.”

“Six.”

“Five.”

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Two,” Mike took a breath. “One- Close your eyes.”

Harvey did.

Midnight struck.

Mike leaned over the counter and kissed him, soft and sweet and over too soon.

“Happy Birthday,” he breathed, pulling back a fraction, so he could meet Harvey’s eyes. Harvey stared at him, any ability to speak stolen from him.

He’d forgotten his own birthday. 

It wasn’t the first time. With his lifestyle it probably wouldn’t be the last either.

But all that was missing from that moment were worn playing cards and an old chiming clock. If not for those lacking details, Harvey could have sworn he was sitting on the floor of his old bedroom, holding his breath, waiting, as he and Mike counted the chimes in hushed voices. 

He wanted to hit something. He wanted to cry.

“How did… how did you-” he managed, the candle starting to drip wax onto the icing. 

Mike swallowed thickly. “I… I don’t know I just… knew, for some reason.”

“You knew?”

“October 30th,” Mike said. “1971.” he paused. “Right?”

“Yeah but-”

“I don’t know why but I’ve remember the date for years.” Mike shrugged. 

“Mike.”

“Blow out your candle. Make a wish before you lose your shot.”

Harvey tore his eyes away from Mike long enough to blow out the candle and think to himself-

Let us be happy.

Then Mike was leaning back across the counter and sliding the cupcake aside, kissing him again, this time with more purpose, that same warmth from the night in August. Except Mike tasted like curry and salt and chapped lips and Harvey couldn’t breathe. When Mike’s hands moved to cradle his face, he stopped trying to remember how, closed his eyes, and let the world go.  
Mike seemed to lose patience with the counter after a few moments, coaxing Harvey closer and closer, until all he could do was climb onto it and slide over to Mike, framing him with his spread legs. Mike stood, his hands, with their long nimble fingers, slid to hold Harvey’s hips and keep him there, keep him from running. A part of Harvey wanted to, the small, sensible part of him that kept reminding him in an ever softening voice that this would ruin them. But he was already falling apart, if this would ruin him, then at least he’d be able to enjoy it for one fleeting moment. 

The cupcake and whiskey were forgotten as Mike pushed up the hem of Harvey’s worn t-shirt and pressed his hands to the small of his back, hot like a brand against Harvey’s skin. Harvey just clung to Mike’s shoulders, bracing himself with a white knuckle grip on his sweater, kissing him for all he was worth. 

If he were honest, Harvey didn’t think he’d ever be able to put Mike’s worth into words, actions, or even thought. 

He’d never be able to adequately explain the thrill of Mike’s touch, leaving invisible scars across his skin. Or the sound of his voice as he spoke against the flushed color of his neck, telling Harvey it was alright, they’d be alright, like he believed it with all his being. He’d never be able to sum up how Mike’s eyes were wet and bright and desperate in the stark kitchen light, every shade of blue Harvey could put a name to. 

God he was turning into such a fucking sap.

“We’re… N-not doing this here,” He managed to say, as Mike left a trail of marks along his neck. “Mike-” He groaned when Mike bit down hard where his neck and shoulder met, sucking at the skin until it ached beneath his lips. “Not in the kitchen.”

Something about Mike’s crooked grin said ‘Not yet anyway’ but Harvey ignored it and pushed him back so he could climb off the counter. As soon as he was steady, Mike was back on him, threading his fingers in Harvey’s short hair, licking into his mouth, controlling him completely. 

“Then where’s the bedroom?” he asked, breathless and flushed with color as he grinned up at Harvey. 

Harvey swallowed thickly and nodded to the hallway along the large windows, expecting every second for Mike to lose his nerve and excuse himself. But Mike just grabbed Harvey by the wrist and pulled him along, pausing only for a moment outside Harvey’s bedroom to kiss him, slow and reassuring. 

Once they crossed the threshold, that was it. Harvey may as well have signed away the last pieces of himself to Mike, letting Mike lead him to the bed, letting Mike press him down against the sheets. His mind kept coming up with ridiculous analogies for what this was, what it felt like, a sacrifice, a ritual, a bonding, each more farfetched and pathetic than the next. Mike laid him out and mapped his body, pushing up his t-shirt so he could mark Harvey’s chest and stomach, rolling his hips against Harvey’s as he worked. 

It was slow, drawn out, simple. The two of them still half clothed, burning up under each other’s hands, rocking against each other to find some sort of release. The only sounds that breached the heavy silence of the condo were Mike’s coaxing, soft words, and the soft sounds that slipped from Harvey against his will. He kicked off his own jeans and slid Harvey’s sweats and boxers down past his knees. Harvey bucked up as Mike’s long fingers curled around his cock and started stroking him in a slow, teasing rhythm. Mike’s cock moved against Harvey’s hip, matching the pace of his hand, his mouth working another hickey into the skin of Harvey’s throat, well aware it would be seen at work the next day. Harvey arching up against him, eyes closed, neck bared, vulnerable and needy and lost.

Something was spoken between them, as the rhythm became just a fraction quicker, something spoken and shared, a second secret for them to cherish in that hallowed space- something that sounded a little like love to Harvey’s ears. 

And then it was over.

The silence and the dark began to settle back in around them, their skin still alight. Mike stayed curled around Harvey, resting on top of him, not caring about his come on Harvey’s hip, or Harvey’s coating his hand. Harvey forced his eyes open, wondering for a moment if he’d dreamed it all.

But Mike was there, murmuring against his jaw, kissing him. 

“I need to clean up,” Harvey said after a moment. 

Mike lifted his head, his face passive. “Do you want me to leave?”

Harvey shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to be alone after that. Mike smiled softly and kissed him, before rolling off to the side so Harvey could go wash up in the bathroom. 

Sex always came with a lot of emotions, even when it wasn’t supposed to. Most of the time it was mild satisfaction, a slight irritation at the effort of having to find a stranger, a hint of loneliness because he’d do it again the next day. Sometimes it was jus satisfaction, because it had just played out perfectly.

This felt different.

As he washed his hands and wiped the come from his hip, Harvey could feel his heart breaking. 

Which was ridiculous.

He’d gotten what he’d always wanted, hadn’t he?

Mike, beautiful Mike, was stretched out in his bed right now, all his. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t his Mike, because Mike Ross had nestled his way into Harvey’s life and he fit oh so perfectly. So it didn’t matter, it didn’t. 

But a part of him couldn’t shake the feeling that this was wrong, that it had happened for all the wrong reasons, and that it really was just the next step in his downfall. 

He looked up at his reflection in the mirror, cheeks still flushes, eyes framed by dark shadows, the thin lines around his eyes and mouth more pronounced.

He was forty one and he was beginning to feel ancient. 

“Harvey?” Mike’s voice asked from the door.

Harvey couldn’t move, he looked down at the hot water filling the skin, burning his hands. Mike let out a soft sigh and came to him, turning off the water and grabbing a towel to dry Harvey’s hands with. “Come on.”

He let Mike lead him back to bed, let Mike curl around him under the covers and slowly fall asleep.

But he found no peace, no satisfaction.

Only guilt that tore at his gut and kept him staring at his ceiling until the first rays of sunlight began forcing their way through the blinds. 

Mike Ross, he thought to himself, deserved so much more.

His Mike would be disappointed in him.

And those were the only truths he was able to accept.


End file.
